So far to date this is my favorite project. It is also the Project I charged WAY too little to make. The extra hours I spent working on this were well spent. I was given the freedom to create whatever I wanted to serve one purpose; Hold a dollar bill flat with a little space on the sides to grab them, and have a picture of a wheat bundle on the lid. My first thought was the bread box my grandmother kept her fresh loaves in, so I used that old style of sliding lid to begin and added to the old bread box’s design to create my own take on the “bread box to hold the dough.”

What I came up with was a joy to create. First I used Bolivian Rosewood, Maple, and some scrap Mesquite from another project.

The box has simple miter corners, but I wanted more decoration on this project. So I put some scrap mesquite on the lathe and turned the legs. It was a fun challenge to cut the 90 degree groove into the legs. After the groove was in the legs, I had to size them, fit the corner heights, and then glue scraps of maple in. When that was done back to the lathe to clean up the curves and add a bit of flare to the lower legs.

When the legs and box were glued together, I did not like the look of the leg tops and felt it needed more. So I capped the legs with some of the extra rosewood and shaped them with files. The shaping took just over 6 hours, my poor arms were SOOOO tired.

I added magnets to the lid and body, filed out the groove for the lid, and added felt to the interior. I finished the box with 2 coats of a paste wax and buffed it after each.